Ending The Game (ETG) is designed to educate and empower survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking by providing a structure and framework to uncover harmful psychological coercion (a.k.a. “The Game”) that victims may have been subjected to during or before their exploitation experience. By revealing a sequence of commonly-used, yet seldom-explained, mind control techniques used by traffickers, sexual abusers, media and other coercive agents, we aim to empower victims to acquire skills and end “The Game.”

“Designed to educate and empower survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking…”

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Real life survivors talk about how they ENDED “The Game”…

ETG Changes Lives
Read real life comments from ETG participants…

[This class] made me realize a lot about my whole experience in “the life.” It brought out a lot of hidden emotions and suppressed memories. Which helped me therapeutically. My favorite [activity] was, inside the box we had to put the person we were in the life and outside of the box we put the “real me”. For example, inside the box I put things like “No crying, laughing, or showing any emotion, speak when spoken to, short skirts, thongs, loyalty, and closed legs don’t get fed.” On the outside I put, “I’m emotional, I belong to nobody but God, I’m strong, I speak my mind, I love to read and listen to music and I love to laugh.” It was these types of things that really helped me find myself and brought me back to reality that I’m not what I used to do and I’m not who he made me to be.

-This reflection was written by a 15-year-old sex trafficking victim in Los Angeles County, CA.

My feelings changed about my trafficker during the group. I’ve known him since I was 11 and I’m 16 now and he wasn’t just always my trafficker, he’s been there for me when no one else was so there’s always gonna be love for him in my heart. But after reading certain things from that one pimps book I definitely changed how I looked at him, and questioned what kind of man he really is. And also listening to the ETG survivors on the videos, and hearing their experiences with their pimps and stuff and doing the different homework activities overall just made me look at “the life” differently. And it made me see the bad things and how he had a big affect on my life. It definitely helped me to reflect on the scars he left me physically and mentally. And see that 10% of the time he was my superman saving me from bad situations but 90% he was the person putting me in those situations. And although I’m always gonna have love for him, I know he’s not a good person, he doesn’t have my best interest at heart and he took advantage of me and used me. And he’s less of a man in my eyes now because no real man puts a little girl out on the streets, no real man sells a little girl, no real man puts his hands on a girl and no real man forces a person to do anything they don’t want to.

-This reflection was written by a 16-year-old sex trafficking victim in Los Angeles County, CA.

Meet the authors behind Ending the Game

Steven Hassan

M.Ed., LMHC, NCC,

Steven has been involved in educating the public about mind control, controlling groups and destructive cults since 1976. As a survivor of the Moonies cult while in his early 20s, Steve knows from personal experience how overwhelmingly destructive mind control can be. Steve is founder of Freedom Of Mind Resource Center, Inc. and has written three books that have received extensive praise from former cult members, families of former members, clergy, cult experts, and psychologists including Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults & Beliefs (2013). As an expert on cults, cult counselor and mental health professional, Steve has been featured in media including 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Dateline, Oprah, and CNN Anderson Cooper.

D’Lita Miller

AA in Criminal Justice

Founder of Families Against Sex Trafficking (FAST). D’lita is a community activist, who is well known for her frontline work to pass Prop 35 and highly sought after for her ability to connect with survivors. As a sex trafficking survivor and mother of a survivor, D’lita has made it her life’s mission to help clean up the streets of her hometown, Compton. She also does extensive outreach and lobbying throughout California. In addition to leading prevention curricula for trafficking survivors for three years, D’lita has mentored dozens of victims. As founder of FAST, D’lita is working on developing resources for parents of victims and survivors. D’lita has been working on plans for a shelter in Los Angeles that would offer families and their children a safe place away from the reach of traffickers

Carissa Phelps

JD/MBA, CEO of Runaway Girl, FPC (RG)

In addition to providing career development opportunities for survivors of human trafficking, RG organizes survivors of human trafficking around resources, networks, businesses, and local efforts to protect and care for survivors and victims within their own communities. Carissa is a licensed attorney, who advocates for victims’ rights. Carissa’s memoir, Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets (Viking 2012), is used by instructors in juvenile detention facilities, as well as professors of social work in graduate level courses. In her memoir, Carissa shares how the unexpected kindness of a math teacher and a counselor transformed her life and helped her to believe in her own potential. With ETG, Carissa aims to give a greater number of survivors and victims a similar opportunity.

Rachel Thomas, M. Ed.

Founder of Sowers Education Group

Rachel is a former high school teacher and corporate trainer with over 10 years’ experience in curriculum writing, training and teaching. Rachel’s own experience with sex trafficking, coupled with her passion for education, led her and her husband to start Sowers, an organization purposed to sow seeds of awareness and empowerment to end human trafficking. Sowers will develop a series of sexual exploitation recovery curricula, to be used by schools, churches, parents, and service providers throughout the nation. Since it’s inception in 2012, Rachel has reached over 47,000 live audience members and millions more through numerous media outlets including New Day Morning Show on CNN, Inside with Chris Cuomo: Anyone’s Daughter on HLN, The T.D. Jakes Show, The New York Times Upfront Magazine and ABC’s Newsmakers. Rachel was also honored by Congressman Ed Royce of California’s 39th district and Los Angeles Supervisor Don Knabe for her leadership and trafficking prevention efforts.

Learn more about Sex Trafficking Intervention
Join the Fight with ETG against sex trafficking

Over the last decade, thousands of domestic sex trafficking victims have been identified and offered services.[1] Though there is little evidence-based research on the mental health treatment of victims of human trafficking[2], one disturbing trend cannot be ignored: “(Victims) are usually extremely loyal to their trafficker. Oftentimes they do not self-identify as victims and do not actively seek escape….The power of psychological bonds is very strong.”[3] To date, most traditional interventions and therapeutic responses do not address this apparent attachment to traffickers, as well as the connection a victim may feel to a lifestyle characterized by sexual exploitation. Thus, the underlying cause remains hidden, or is never addressed.

The crime of sex trafficking is defined as “causing a person to engage in commercial sex acts by use of force, fraud or coercion.”[4] Though usually presented together there is a difference between force, fraud and coercion. Force is generally an overt act, and while fraud manipulates surface beliefs, coercion manipulates core beliefs.[5] Coercion is invisible, intended to elude even the victim. Despite coercion being unseen, it is the key to understanding the lingering attachment to a trafficker or to a life characterized by commercial sexual exploitation.

Whether resolute to return, wavering in ambivalence, or desperately trying to suppress a desire to return, many victims experience some level of attachment to traffickers and/or “the game.”[6] It is a troubling and perplexing reality that many victims feel powerless to combat. However, in our current system of care, once there has been a physical separation from a trafficker, we place the burden on victims to make use of services on their own, without guidance or a clear understanding of what mind control is, and why they may feel an urge to return to the person/s who have victimized them.